Tuesday, September 15, 2009

lynn in love with makeup essentials

Hey guys! Now that I have my space all cleaned up, I wanted to show you my favorite products. I lo-urve makeup and beauty products! As a so-called artist, I love having a clean canvas of a face and creating my best face forward with just a few swooshes of brushes and colors. Many friends like to plunder into my makeup bags, so I wanted to show you, my readers, my best products.

My makeup style? natural, defined, pretty, economical, efficient. My philosophy is that makeup should bring out your natural beauty and help play out your best features. I also need a regimen that is quick and easy. As a medical resident, I had little time to get ready in the morning, and I wanted a routine that I could easily reproduce in less than 5 minutes. While I sometimes like to play with colors and do more dramatic looks on the weekend, most days, I wear the same natural colors and products.

Makeup Essentials (click on picture to get to links)Foundation -After moisturizing my face every morning, I start off with foundation. I like my foundation to be as natural as possible, so where it looks like I'm not wearing any base, but my skin tone is even. I love for my freckles to shine through! So I usually pick a foundation that is fairly sheer. The base makeup I have used for the last several years has been Everyday Minerals Makeup. I love mineral makeup because it's very fast to apply, it gives you very natural coverage, and it provides SPF. Because it is a powder base, I don't have to powder and can cut out a product. I love Everday Minerals because they are eco-friendly, their formulas are fantastic, and their products are incredibly affordable. One container of base is $12. They provide 4 different finishes, so you can decide on what kind of coverage that you need. My favorite part of this company however if that you can get FREE trial samples of their makeup, so you can find your perfect shade. No Nancy Gribble makeup lines, please! I use Light Olive in Original Glow for most days, and go for more coverage with a Semi-Matte when I go out.

Concealer - I use Bobbi Brown Creamy Concealer in Beige. This concealer is silky smooth and provides great coverage without being too cakey. I use it on blemishes, undereye circles, and on my lids as an eyeshadow base.Eyeshadows - I'm generally not too picky on my shadows. I always place a base of light white/bone on my lid and define with either a combo of brown/blue or bronze/slate. I love Bobbi Brown's palettes, but think Estee Lauder and Loreal make great shadows. I haven't used MAC, but I might check out some colors, since they look like they give great pigment.

Eyeliner -Eyeliner and Mascara are probably my two make up MUST-HAVES. Every girl should pick one feature that they love about their face and play that up. I like my eyes, so I focus on these more. I LOVE a defined eye. Nothing too crazy, but I tend towards a 1940's look. My FAVORITE liner is MAC's Fluidline in Blacktrack. This is a gel liner in a vial that you apply on with a brush. You get great control with the brush and get a beautiful fluid waterproof line. I think of it as between a pencil liner and a liquid liner. Bobbi Brown also makes a gel liner, but I prefer MAC's as I think it lasts longer. I apply it with Bobbi Brown's Ultra fine Eyeliner brush.

Mascara -My all time favorite mascara is Maybelline's Full and Soft in waterproof and Very Black. I think this stuff is amazing. It gives lashes length and volume without looking crunchy or leaving you with awful spider lashes. It's naturally fantastic. But what I love most is that it can keep a curl after using a eyelash curler AND it's completely buildable. This mean you can keep building layers of mascara to get volume without it getting clumpy. I need an eyelash curler to get my lashes to do anything but lay straight, and I despise a mascara that makes my lashes limp after curling them. One warning is that when you first purchase the mascara, it will be fairly thin/liquidy. After one week, though, it's good to go and will last you a while. If I'm going out at night, I use DiorShow Mascara only on top of Full and Soft. While DiorShow is wonderfully black, it actually doesn't give you the volume that Full and Soft does.

Eyebrows - I feel that eyebrows are one of the most important things to get squared away about your face (besides good skin, good moisturizers). Your eyebrows can totally define and shape your face. I've been plagued with CRAZY eyebrows all my life. They don't lay straight, the hairs are long, they stop and go as the please. I discovered Pearl, my eyebrow shaper at Jean Phillipe Hair Salon on Lover's Lane, and she has done wonders to my brows. I think it is important that if you have problems brows, you find somebody who not only knows how to clean up your brows but is also a true artist in shaping them. I use a MAC angle brush dipped in dark brown shadow (BobbiBrownExpresso in an eye palate) to define my brows. I've only been doing this for about 4 months, and it has made a huge difference in my face.

Blush - Despite my very round cheeks, I love blush! I love a little dewey glow on my cheeks. I think it makes me looks fresh, awake, and alive. If I do a natural look without makeup one day, as I long as I have brows, a little blush, and a little lip balm, I feel good to go. I have tons of blushes included favorites Nars Orgasm/Deep Throat, Tarte stains, cream blushers and bronzers, but I always go back to my Bobbi Brown blusher in Blushed. It has the perfect amount of rosiness for me. If I want to be extra luminous, I brush on top Bobbi Brown's shimmer brick in rose. Love it.

Lips -Lips is where I get to play with colors! I'm very particular about lip color formulas as I hate the taste/feel of most lipsticks. I tend towards products that have a lip balm kind of feel and I HATE the feel of lip gloss. It's limiting, but I've found some fantastic products. While on an everyday basis I love natural colors, I've been experimenting with more fun bright colors and I'm loving it. I'll list some of my favorites products: BobbiBrown lipsticks and tinted lip balms, MAC and Laura Mercier's lipsticks. MAC lipglass, Bobbi Brown and Kiehl's lip gloss are the only lip glosses I tolerate. Right now my personal favorite color/lipstick is Laura Mercier'sLipstick Shimmer in Plum Wine. It is hydrating and matches everything with its subtle but bright color.

Okay that's it in my essentials makeup bag! After years of experimenting with makuep, I bring you only my favorite and best products!

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all about the things I love...
all the little things that makes life worth living.
the beauty, the joy, and the love.
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